"Spoiler Content Warning!" |
“ | You're all f*ckin' welcome. | „ |
~ Butcher talking to The Boys after brutally murdering Victoria Neuman. |
“ | F*cking diabolical!! | „ |
~ Billy Butcher's catchphrase. |
William "Billy" Butcher is one of the two main protagonists (alongside Hughie Campbell) of the 2019 Amazon TV adaptation of the comic book series The Boys.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
- In his childhood, he sold marijuana when he attended school and assaulted the headmaster with a stapler for attempting to reason with him.
- He abandons his brother Lenny to a horrible fate. While he believed that he was doing his brother a favor by staying away from his father who hated him the most, this drove Lenny to suicide.
- He left his close friend Joe Kessler to die in battle at some point.
- He brutally murders Mesmer for betraying him due to wanting to earn a place at Vought International supposedly to provide for his daughter, even though he is apologetic.
- Straps Madelyn Stillwell in an attempt to sway Homelander although she somewhat had it coming.
- Nearly killed Teddy Stillwell (Madelyn Stillwell’s infant son) in an attempt to destroy Homelander with a bomb strapped on Madelyn stillwell.
- Abandons the boys to pursue Homelander by himself.
- When his friend sells him out to the police, Butcher attempts to kill him which he does by strangling him to death and burning his body with gasoline.
- He cuts a deal with Stan Edgar to take Becca and leave Ryan at the hands of Vought.
- He contemplated killing Ryan Butcher with a crowbar for accidentally killing Becca, though Homelander's arrival snaps him out of his rage.
- Even after Gunpowder gives him the information he wants, Butcher still kills him by brutally beating him and then lasering his head in half for no reason other than pure hatred for Supes.
- He blamed Ryan for Becca’s death. While he was doing this to protect Ryan, it was harsh and caused a lot of emotional damage for Ryan.
- Throughout the season he manipulated and used all of his friends for his own purposes, including Hughie, whom was an image of his deceased younger brother. This also caused the rest of The Boys to turn against Hughie as well, Starlight included.
- He helps Soldier Boy track down and kill his former teammates in Payback, with the deal that he must kill Homelander.
- What makes this worse is how Butcher is fully aware of the pain Soldier Boy caused M.M and his family, yet still goes through with it.
- He kidnaps Sameer Shah, cuts off his leg, and forces him to create another (more deadly and contagious) variant of the Supe-killing virus.
- After seeing Ryan kill Grace, he seemingly lost all hope and trust in the possibility that not all Supes are bad, and allowed the parasite to take control of his body so they can commit genocide against them.
- He went to The Boys headquarters and brutally murdered Victoria Neuman, and when Victoria's Daughter Zoe tried to prevent it, he knocked her out. He then threatens his former team to hand over the virus and taunts them by saying “[they're] f-cking welcome”.
- What makes this worse is that Neuman already turned on Vought, making this kill completely unnecessary, and the now orphaned Zoe was then sent to Red River Institute, the same orphanage where her mother grew up in.
- This action also directly led to Homelander securing one of the highest seats of power in the USA government, the declaration of martial law, Supes becoming deputized by the government under Homelander’s command, and the (at least apparent) capture of all of The Boys except Starlight. While this wasn’t intentional on his part, his decision to go all out against the wishes of his team was what set it all into motion.
- While he does have several comedic moments, they mostly happen in the first half of the show and he is taken much more seriously as the show progresses.
Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]
- While he easily passes the baseline for having a high kill count and intending to commit genocide, he still fails the massively high heinous standards of the series to Homelander and Stormfront, who have both killed dozens and hundreds of innocent people respectively.
- Additionally, Butcher's attempted genocide has just started and is still ongoing in the unreleased fifth season, meaning it ultimately falls under fridge horror.
- He is extremely tragic for multiple reasons:
- He was severely abused by his father throughout his childhood and joined the SAS to escape him, only to learn his brother committed suicide in his absence.
- He was also forced to the traumatic memory of finding his brother's dead body when placed under Mindstorm's nightmare-inducing void.
- He had his beloved wife Becca raped by Homelander and believed he murdered her for years, being unable to fight back against the corrupt system. After finding out she is alive again, he was unable to reconnect with her due to the circumstances and she ends up being (unintentionally) killed by her own son.
- His hatred for Supes blinded him to the point of going so far as to take Temp Compound V at the cost of his own health which resulted in him having only 18 months left to live and causing him to hallucinate his deceased wife Becca and deceased friend Joe Kessler, who began manipulating and psychologically abusing Butcher.
- He was severely abused by his father throughout his childhood and joined the SAS to escape him, only to learn his brother committed suicide in his absence.
- There are several people he genuinely cares for/respects:
- He deeply loved his wife Becca and was left broken after her disappearance following her rape by Homelander. Even after her death in Season 2, he still saw visions of her, as a result of his brain tumor, where she would act as his moral compass.
- He cared for his little brother Lenny and protected him from their father's abuse. It was also stated that Lenny was the only person who could calm Butcher down in his childhood.
- He similarly began to view Hughie as a little brother figure and even saved his life by refusing to let him take any more Temp-V. By further extension he was reluctant to get Hughie fully involved in his antics at first due to his kindness and innocence, only taking him along following Translucent's attempted assassination on the former, knowing well what kind of trouble he would get into with Vought.
- Although the validity of his relationship with some of the Boys is debatable given his habit of using and betraying them, his friendship with MM is less contentious as he prevented Soldier Boy from killing him in the Herogasm event and felt remorse for initially going against him during Season 4. Also, he still defends Frenchie and Kimiko when the parasite talks bad about them.
- He didn't harm anyone but Neuman when he killed the latter, suggesting he still had some care for the Boys.
- Despite initially resenting him for being the product of his wife's rape, he later starts to care for Ryan, evident when he genuinely wanted to keep him far away from Homelander for his own safety, even willingly risking his own life to protect him. While he did blame him for Becca's death despite being a complete accident, he subverted that by telling that her death wasn't her fault at the Season 4 finale. He also had moments of having fun with Ryan Ryan, bonding with him in the process. He was also one of the factors as to why Butcher was reluctant with committing a genocide against all the supes as he was the first person Butcher thought about and saw that there are still good in some supes. However, after Ryan accidentally (albeit remorselessly) murdered Grace Mallory did only then Billy finally embrace his darker side and went on commiting the Supe genocide which would also poison and kill Ryan in the process. Therefore, he is presumably slowly but surely subverting his care for Ryan.
- While little is known about their friendship, he was very close to CIA operative Joe Kessler when he was alive, as evident by his interactions with the parasite taking Kessler's form.
- Although their relationship is troubled, he still seems to care for Grace when she meets him while he's in the hospital, and when Ryan killed her, her death was the turning point that led to his decision to kill all Supes.
- He has a Pet the Dog moment where he released a rabbit that was being experimented on with Temp-V, which may insinuate that he has a soft spot for animals as he's also shown treating his family dog, Terror, with love and affection.
- He can be genuinely affable to his allies, like Starlight and Soldier Boy. With Starlight, he bonded with her over their relationship with Hughie, and with Soldier Boy, he bonded with him over their difficult upbringings.
- While in the hospital, when he believed he was going to die, he called Hughie and asked him to tell The Boys that he’s sorry for everything he's done. This scene is played for sympathy, since his apology was 100% sincere, and he also reminisces about an old restaurant he and Lenny wanted to visited but never got to, and he asks Hughie to visit it for them.
- Overall, he's a well-intentioned extremist, who genuinely (and understandably) believes Supes are a threat to humans and need to be stopped.
Trivia[]
- Only the TV version of Billy is a Villainous Benchmark, his comic counterpart was approved Inconsistently Heinous for being more heinous overall in addition to attempting genocide. However, given Billy's actions in the finale of Season 4, where he plans to achieve practically the same outcome as his comics self, there's a high chance his status could change in the future if he is successful.
External Links[]
- Billy Butcher on the Villains Wiki
- Billy Butcher on the Heroes Wiki
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